


Give It Up

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 07:17:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15724593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah groans low in her throat and pulls Rachel into a kiss. Oh: Sarah. Unfortunately, Sarah. Terribly, Sarah. There are other adjectives. Rachel sucks Sarah’s lower lip between her teeth. She’s stroking Sarah’s skull in little circles with the tips of her thumbs and she doesn’t know when she started and she doesn’t quite know how to stop.(In which Rachel and Sarah have sex, and Rachel tries to convince both herself and the reader that she feels absolutely nothing about this. She fails miserably.)





	Give It Up

Sarah always picks Rachel’s locks, which is pointless. She could ask Rachel for a key; she won’t. Rachel won’t give her one. To ask or to give would be a confession – neither of them are good at confessing with actions like that. There are other ways to confess that are simultaneously more and less damning.

To that end: Sarah picks the lock. It’s late. Rachel is sitting at her kitchen island, drinking wine, staring at nothing. Thinking about Sarah – hazy, around the edges. If it’s hazy it isn’t a damning sort of confession. The loop of Sarah’s hair around Rachel’s fingers, maybe. That in and of itself isn’t damning.

The door opens. Sarah has gotten quicker and quicker at picking Rachel’s lock, and they both pretend that isn’t damning either. Rachel doesn’t drain the rest of her wine. (It’s an effort.) Instead she takes another measured sip and watches Sarah duck in through the door – the hood of her familiar stupid leather jacket up around her face, her boots splashed with mud. When she lowers the hood, her face is soft. Too soft. Then she sees Rachel, and it’s something else.

Her hair is wet. Around the edges. It’s beginning to frizz.

“It’s raining,” Rachel says.

“It’s raining,” Sarah says. She tugs off her boots, drops the sopping mess of her leather jacket on the coat rack. Underneath the jacket she’s wearing a black sweater, oversized. Her usual oilslick trousers. There’s a hole in one of her socks. Rachel drinks more wine. She isn’t facing the window, so she can’t pretend she’s looking out of it.

“You got bourbon?” Sarah asks, for what must be the tenth time.

“Yes,” Rachel says, for the tenth time.

Sarah bobs her head in a nod and goes towards the cabinet. She knows where the bourbon is. Asking is pointless. She pulls down a glass and fills it. Neither of them say _hello_ , or _how are you_ , or _I missed you_. They wouldn’t say _I missed you_. Instead Rachel drinks more wine.

“How many blocks did you walk,” she says.

“Dunno,” Sarah says. “Four. It’s good. Clears my head.” She dumps the bourbon down her throat. Then she lowers the glass. When she meets Rachel’s eyes she blinks, twice, like she’s startled. She fills the glass again. Rachel drinks more wine. She doesn’t say _I missed you_. Instead she watches Sarah’s throat as Sarah drinks more bourbon – the animal surge of it, the desperate lurch. Sarah thuds the glass against the counter and watches Rachel; her eyes are damning, but when don’t their eyes damn them in one way or another. Rachel drinks more wine, tips the glass up high enough to catch the dregs so that Sarah warps and distorts and vanishes.

When Rachel lowers the glass Sarah has skulked around the counter, is standing next to Rachel. Rachel couldn’t hear her, because she’s in stocking feet, because the sound of her feet against the floor is (too) soft.

“You didn’t go out at all today, did you,” Sarah says. She sounds amused.

“What gave me away.”

“Your hair,” Sarah says, and she reaches out and touches it. The fraying bottom, the split-ends. She drags her fingers through it. She shouldn’t, but she never does what she’s supposed to do; that’s why Rachel—

 

“My hair,” Rachel says roughly.

“It looks good,” Sarah says. She hasn’t moved her fingers. They tremor slightly, just a little bit, just enough that Rachel can feel them moving against the strands.

“If you were out,” Sarah says, “it’d look like.” With her other hand she gestures to the frizzing mane of her hair. “It’s been pissin’ buckets all day.”

“I might have used an umbrella,” Rachel says. She can’t sit there like this, with Sarah this close, with her eyes that bright. She reaches out and tucks Sarah’s hair behind her ear. That wasn’t what she’d meant to do – but she’s done it, and there it is. The naked pink shell of Sarah’s ear. The skin is so thin there; if Rachel put her mouth to it, she could feel Sarah’s heartbeat.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “like you’ve ever carried an umbrella in your bloody life.” She drops her hand; it falls to Rachel’s upper arm, casually, like Sarah hadn’t meant anything by it. Rachel shouldn’t have worn a dress with short sleeves. She can feel Sarah’s fingers brushing up against the bottom of it, where there isn’t enough black fabric to protect her.

“I might have hired a manservant,” she says.

“Don’t,” Sarah says, “I get jealous,” and then she steps forward and kisses Rachel. With Rachel perched on a stool they’re the same height, but then again they usually are. Sarah’s mouth is sweet and warm. It tastes like the expensive bourbon that Rachel keeps buying, even though she’s always hated bourbon.

Rachel tangles her fingers in Sarah’s hair. Raindrops brush, cold, against her knuckles.

Sarah groans low in her throat and steps closer. Oh: Sarah. Unfortunately, Sarah. Terribly, Sarah. There are other adjectives. Rachel sucks Sarah’s lower lip between her teeth. She’s stroking Sarah’s skull in little circles with the tips of her thumbs and she doesn’t know when she started and she doesn’t quite know how to stop.

Sarah breaks the kiss, buries her face against Rachel’s neck, kisses Rachel’s jaw and Rachel’s neck and the lone freckle between Rachel’s neck and shoulder. Rachel grabs onto Sarah’s shoulders. They’re cold – a little damp.

“Hello,” she says faintly.

Sarah stops. Rachel can feel puffs of warm breath against her neck. “Hey,” Sarah whispers.

“Your hands are frigid,” Rachel says.

_I don’t know what to do_ , Rachel doesn’t say.

“You’re warm,” Sarah says. Her voice is a little strained, a little high. She steps closer and presses her body up against Rachel’s. She’s going to dampen Rachel, what with the evidence of rain.

“I’m not warm,” Rachel says. Sarah pushes the neck of Rachel’s dress down so she can kiss Rachel’s shoulder, the skin above her breast. Rachel’s heart is hammering, which Sarah can likely feel. Neither of them comment on it. Rachel somehow has her hands under Sarah’s sweater; the skin is clammy, and Sarah isn’t wearing a shirt underneath. She’s going to catch cold and die out there. She shouldn’t keep walking through the city at night in the rain, she’s going to shiver herself to death.

“You’re warm,” Sarah murmurs dizzily. Her hands stutter down Rachel’s arms, to the ladder of her ribcage. Her palms skim against the fabric of Rachel’s dress; they’re cold. On Rachel’s legs: cold.

“Stop,” Rachel says, and Sarah’s hands jump away again. She shouldn’t listen, she shouldn’t – but she always does – Rachel opens her eyes and Sarah has taken a step back, wary feral jaw, hands already curled into almost fists. Rachel grabs them – Sarah’s hands. Presses them between her hands. They’re rough.

“You are unforgivable,” she says to Sarah’s hands. “Buy gloves.”

“Piss off,” Sarah murmurs. She shifts from foot to foot, slightly. Her eyes dart to Rachel’s and then in the vague direction of the door – Sarah’s dripping coat, her muddy boots. She says: “Sorry.”

Rachel exhales through her nose, slides off the stool. Doesn’t let go of Sarah’s hands. Says: “Don’t.” Kisses Sarah again.

Sarah is only half-alive without her hands – she can’t touch Rachel, she can’t fidget or fuss or twitch. Energy thrums through her like a live wire, doubling around, sending her surging desperate and eager towards Rachel’s mouth. Sarah, handcuffed to a bed: unbelievable. Rachel hasn’t told Sarah this. She thinks all sorts of things about Sarah that she’d never confess to, and the thunderstorm of Sarah tied down is only one of them.

Sarah’s bites at Rachel’s lip. They both bite too much, probably. Rachel bites her back; she lets her mouth open against Sarah’s, she runs her tongue along the fine points of Sarah’s teeth.

Sarah’s hands tremble finely between Rachel’s hands.

The kiss goes on, faster, frantic. One of them has bitten the other to bleeding. Rachel imagines Sarah’s hands trembling faster, faster; she imagines the friction, the sparks. It’s always impossible to contain Sarah Manning for long.

When Rachel lets her go, Sarah grabs onto Rachel’s hips and tugs her forward; Rachel crashes into her, gets her hands back into Sarah’s hair again. Sarah’s hands rub up and down the curve of Rachel’s hips, tease under Rachel’s dress, back over the dress – like Sarah can’t decide what to do with her hands, which part of Rachel she’s most desperate to touch. There’s a low growl in the pit of her throat. Rachel slips her hands down the column of Sarah’s throat, strokes the curves of Sarah’s breasts and settles her hands on Sarah’s hips.

She breaks the kiss. “Bed,” she says, and bites the pulse point at Sarah’s neck.

“Seriously?” Sarah says faintly. “Now?”

“We aren’t doing this in the kitchen,” Rachel says. She kisses Sarah’s neck, bites it again – just to hear Sarah’s sharp inhalation, her stuttered drawn-out breath of _shite_.

“You sure?” Sarah says. Her hands are back under Rachel’s dress, palms pressed to the tops of Rachel’s thighs. She’s finally warm.

No, Rachel isn’t sure.

She hesitates for too long and then Sarah steps forward so Rachel’s back hits the counter. She pushes Rachel’s dress up with both hands, watches Rachel with eyes that twitch anxiously between Rachel’s eye and glass.

Rachel cups Sarah’s face in one hand. She says Sarah’s name.

Sarah sinks down to her knees, shoves Rachel’s dress up, hooks her thumbs in the waistband of Rachel’s underwear and tugs it down. Rachel grabs onto the edge of the countertop so she can keep from buckling when Sarah – when Sarah – she says Sarah’s name again, emphasis on all the wrong syllables. She brings one hand to her mouth and bites her knuckles. Sarah groans and vibrations go all the way through Rachel, the sound rolling off of Sarah’s tongue and driving Rachel completely insane.

Sarah drives Rachel completely insane. Sarah makes Rachel want to do insane things, like – god – tuck Sarah’s hair behind her ear – and – she bucks against Sarah’s mouth, grinds against it, the pressure sparks through her brain and she’s biting her knuckles down to the bone and she wants to buy Sarah an umbrella, because it’s ridiculous that Sarah is out there in the rain being cold – “ _Sarah_ ” – it’s ridiculous, it shouldn’t happen. Sarah is on her knees. The only sound in the entire world is the wet sound of Sarah’s tongue, fucking Rachel. Rachel is going to buy her an umbrella. She hates Sarah, hates her, her grip on the counter goes entirely to trembling and she slips before she catches herself again and her legs are shaking and. Sarah. She moans, she can’t stop moaning, this raw animal noise in the pit of her throat.

When she looks down, Sarah is looking back up at her. Rachel opens her mouth to say _hello_ again – even though she knows it’s stupid – especially because she knows it’s stupid – but instead she just whines. The corners of Sarah’s mouth turn up; she sucks on Rachel’s clitoris and it hits Rachel like a car crash. She spasms. Her vision slams into nothingness, half white and half black; when she comes back to herself she realizes she’s still making a soft, needy sound. The room is very quiet.

She looks down at Sarah: smearing the back of her hand across her mouth, licking her lips. “Come here,” Rachel says, her voice an embarrassing rasp.

Sarah looks up at her, blinks. Her tongue is still touching the corner of her mouth. “Now,” Rachel says. She leans down enough to grab Sarah’s sweater collar in one demanding and trembling hand, tugs on it – pulls Sarah up to standing – kisses her. She tastes like Rachel; also, she tastes like Rachel. It’s Rachel’s turn to lose her hands completely, to watch them transform into animals. They crawl all over Sarah. They can’t stop touching her. Awful of them.

When she realizes her hands are fisted in the fabric of Sarah’s sweater, she lets go. Stops kissing Sarah. Steps to the side, and around, so Sarah isn’t trapping her anywhere. She walks one step, then another – her legs still won’t hold her, not entirely – and then she pivots. Sarah is still standing where Rachel left her. Her mouth is wet.

“Well?” Rachel says. “Don’t just stand there. I know it’s going to take you hours to remove those ridiculous pants, you may as well have a head start.”

Sarah scoffs a rough laugh from the pit of her throat, lopes towards Rachel’s bedroom. Passes Rachel. Circles around so she can see Rachel, eyes bright. “You like ‘em,” she says.

Rachel keeps walking towards her bedroom, slowly. She reaches down and pulls her dress up all the way over her head and drops it behind her. She raises her eyebrows at Sarah.

“Christ,” Sarah breathes, and ducks into Rachel’s bedroom; Rachel can hear the sound of her landing with a thud on the bed, the faint scuffle of fabric. When she reaches the bedroom she’s met with Sarah, sprawled across the soft white fabric of Rachel’s bedspread, utterly failing to get her pants off.

“Impossible,” Rachel murmurs. She settles on the bed, strokes her own warm fingers up the inner curve of her thigh and watches Sarah’s legs reveal themselves with agonizing slowness. Eventually, Sarah gives up; she starts laughing, one hand over her face, hiccupping a little bit. Rachel watches the sharp edges of Sarah’s smile. She slips two fingertips inside of herself and then back out again, resumes tracing circles on the soft warm inside of her thigh.

The slick black leather tugs over Sarah’s bare feet and Sarah’s free of it; she flips herself over, perches on her knees on the bed, watches Rachel’s hand with hot bright eyes. Says: “Rachel.”

“Sarah,” Rachel says.

Sarah on all fours. Sarah like a jungle cat. Sarah: impossible, terrible, damnable, pushing Rachel’s legs down so she can straddle them. The sweater is too big for her. It’s baring too much of her collarbone. She reaches out and grabs Rachel’s headboard with one hand, presses her mouth to Rachel’s again. She hums. Rachel reaches out and curls her fingers around Sarah’s thigh – it’s prickly with stubble, soft patches where Sarah’s been too lazy with her razor. It’s a wonder she shaves at all; it’s a wonder she doesn’t just leap out of bed and go, run, keep running forever. Rachel strokes her thumb along one tiny patch of fur and leans into the kiss. Sarah’s hand kneads feline against the headboard and her other hand settles on Rachel’s hip, rubbing back and forth against the bone.

They pull apart and come back together, slowly, easily – too much of both. Rachel tightens her grip on Sarah’s legs, flips them over, straddles Sarah’s lap. Sarah lets her. Sarah says: “God—” and “You’re so—” and Rachel puts her hands on the bottom of Sarah’s sweater, tugs it. The two of them pull it off. Faster now. They’re both wearing black bras; Sarah is wearing another one of those stupid combinations of straps and nylon, and it doesn’t match her underwear at all. Rachel kisses her. She balls the sweater up and throws it aside, runs her hands up the warm curve of Sarah’s ribcage.

Sarah reaches out for Rachel but Rachel grabs Sarah’s wrists, drags her hands to the headboard.

“Don’t move,” she says.

“Or else what,” Sarah says.

“Don’t find out,” Rachel says. She leans in and kisses Sarah again, pulls Sarah’s lower lip between her teeth, leans back and then lets Sarah go. Sarah’s mouth is red and wet; her eyes are glazed and feverish. It takes Sarah three tries to grab onto the headboard.

“Good?” Sarah says faintly.

“Very,” Rachel says. Her throat is dry again. She leans in and sucks a bruise into the skin above Sarah’s collarbone, kisses down so she doesn’t have to keep talking. _You have no idea_ , she’d say patiently, _you have absolutely no idea all the things I’d like to do to you_. She pushes Sarah’s bra up, bares her breast, closes her mouth around one pebbling nipple. Sarah makes a choked-up sound when Rachel runs her tongue over it. “Rachel,” she says, and “shit,” and “god, would you – Rachel—” and Rachel would tell her, if she asked. _I want to handcuff you to the bed_ , she’d say. _I want to blindfold you. I want to tease you to the edge of orgasm and bring you back, over and over again, until you’re begging me to be kind to you. I want you to beg. I want to make you bleed. I want you to stay the night more. I don’t want you to go._

Sarah doesn’t ask. She just says Rachel’s name and then dissolves into desperate sounds as Rachel licks and sucks and bites at one breast, strokes at the other. She keeps kissing down Sarah’s stomach. She leaves bite marks. She parts Sarah’s legs, leans forward, presses the pad of her tongue against the black cotton of Sarah’s underwear.

Sarah’s hands spasm downwards, grab onto Rachel’s shoulders; “ _fuck_ ,” Sarah says, the syllable strained and forced, and she scrabbles back for the headboard again. Rachel hums and keeps teasing, just the tip of her tongue, listening to Sarah make up brand new curse words and writhe like a fish out of water.

“Please,” Sarah says, “Rachel, please, come on – come on, please—” and that’s begging, isn’t it, Sarah is begging – Sarah always knows – Rachel pulls Sarah’s underwear far enough down that she can lean in and taste the way Sarah is wet for her.

“ _Rachel_ ,” Sarah groans. She keeps lifting her hips half an inch off the bed and falling back down the second she starts to tremble; Rachel matches the rhythm with her tongue, puts one hand on Sarah’s knee for balance and slides two fingers of the other hand inside of Sarah. Sarah bucks into Rachel’s hand and Rachel’s mouth like she’ll die if she can’t get just a little bit closer. She’s so incredibly wet. Rachel can fit three fingers inside of her, so she does – Sarah could take more, probably, Rachel could buy bigger and thicker toys and see how much Sarah could take and she’d take it all, she could take anything, she would say _please_. Right now she isn’t saying that, but that’s because at this point she’s really only capable of gibberish. Sometimes: the rough edges of Rachel’s name.

Syllables tumble out of Sarah’s mouth and resolve themselves into “I’m gonna—”

Rachel lifts up, just a little. She says: “Good.” She doesn’t stop the relentless push of her fingers; she just settles back on her haunches slightly, watches the desperate gape of Sarah’s mouth.

“Do it, then,” she says, and Sarah comes. All over Rachel’s hand. The tension leaves Sarah’s body in one long rush and she collapses against the headboard, panting. She’s still gripping onto the headboard – tight enough, probably, to leave marks.

Rachel slowly pulls her hand free and sits, licks the taste of Sarah off of her fingers. “You do realize you can release the headboard,” she says.

Sarah falls down onto the bed, stretches her arms up and rolls her wrists. “Don’t,” she says. “How was I s’posed to know you wouldn’t want me to hold on forever. Bitch.” She wriggles out of her bra and throws it off somewhere, leans on Rachel’s pillows and watches Rachel with lidded eyes.

Rachel’s heart has too much in it; there are too many impossible things. When she opens her mouth, though, what comes out is “I’m going to buy you an umbrella.”

Sarah lets out an involuntary snort of breath through her nose. “I’ve got an umbrella,” she says. “Don’t need it, I’ve got a jacket.”

“You don’t have a say in this,” Rachel says. “I’m buying it. You’re going to use it.”

Sarah looks away, swallows. Looks back. Says: “I’ll pick up gloves. Yeah?”

“You have no taste,” Rachel says. “I’ll buy them. I don’t trust you to not purchase something made of black leather.”

“What the hell’s wrong with leather.”

Rachel kisses her. She shouldn’t, but she does. Sarah’s mouth goes soft against her mouth; her hands find Rachel’s upper legs. Rachel could buy her gloves and a scarf and an actual coat with – god forbid – a lining. There are so many ways to confess. There are so many ways for Rachel to utterly damn herself.

Sarah keeps kissing her, lowering herself slowly; Rachel follows, until they’re both lying down on top of Rachel’s bedspread. Rachel lets her legs brush up against Sarah’s legs. She lets herself move closer. When she opens her eyes again, Sarah is so incredibly close. Rachel can count the faint blooming freckles on Sarah’s nose.

She sits up. For a second – only a second – she understands entirely what it means to be Sarah Manning: she could get up and run, she could scramble out the door and run into the rain-soaked city and never, ever come back. Change her name. Move out of the city. Be utterly alone.

Instead she unhooks her bra, slithers out of it, and lies back down. Sarah has rolled onto her back and Rachel puts her head on Sarah’s chest. Sarah draws nonsense patterns in the skin of Rachel’s inner arm with just the tips of her fingers.

Rachel stretches an arm across Sarah’s stomach, hooks her hand around the jut of Sarah’s hipbone. She could fall asleep like this. They both could. In the morning, Sarah would still be here; there would be breakfast, and Sarah taking her tea in some terrible way that Rachel will tell herself she hates. They’d touch. It might not be raining – in the sunlight, Sarah’s hair would turn gold.

Rachel can feel Sarah’s heartbeat rattling against the cage of her ribs, beating like a fist against the skin separating it from Rachel’s head. Rachel closes her eyes; the sound becomes an anchor, and Sarah’s touch becomes an anchor, and that’s all. That’s all there is.

_What are you thinking about_ , Sarah doesn’t say. Rachel doesn’t say _you_.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe you should call her  
> Deep in the night for her  
> And all your being   
> I'd ask you to give it up  
> I'd ask you to give it up  
> \--"Shyer," London Grammar
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
